#native artists

From the DAM page: Miss Chief is a fierce provocateur who moves through time and space in Monkman’s work to disrupt false and incomplete narratives. She embodies Indigenous resilience and presents an empowering point of view of Indigenous gender and sexuality. Look for Miss Chief throughout the exhibition and learn more about her in the following, which is excerpted from the catalog that accompanies the exhibition:

To tell the histories and stories of the European colonization of Indigenous bodies, territories, knowledges, and minds in Canada and the United States, Monkman needed a narrator who could appear at any point in time and space to infuse Indigenous perspectives into art history and to disrupt false and incomplete narratives recorded and perpetuated by non-Indigenous artists.

Seeing how non-Native artists from the 1800s working in the American West, such as George Catlin and Paul Kane, would paint themselves into their own work—an act Monkman found egotistical—and wanting to engage these histories with camp, humor, and a healthy dose of mischief, a narrator was born: Miss Chief Eagle Testickle.

OK OK so i was playing cotl and woolhaven particularly and I noticed how much of an indigenous narrative this could be, especially with land taken and everyone slaughtered to get rid of “old ways” and culture, which is kinda funny because it’s an Australian dev studio that as far as I know isn’t aboriginal but I digress

Taami means corn in Shawnee. I just thought it was short and cute.

I think the lamb would appreciate jingles. I think that, dealing with a canonically non-binary lamb, it’s a bit challenging to try to think about where they would fit with ceremony and powwow dancing, but that’s incredibly variable depending on the tribe as well, so yk. But in terms of POWWOW dancing, I have a better idea. I was thinking probably something like women’s fancy but I added jingles because they already have a bell and what’s a couple more? Plus, it makes them look far more decorated.

The lamb would deserve eagle feathers, but I’m not sure where they would get them in this au. I was thinking five, for each of the bishops slain. Maybe yngya would give them? Unsure. Also occurring to me is another for that, or two for regaining the mountain and the rot, idrk.

I’m Shawnee, so most of what I know is informed from that. I drew a bit from other woodland tribes too, and the dancing from all over of course as most probably know how mixed it is.